Social Enterprise Spotlight – 12 Guitars
Posted: 09 July 2019, in News
Our newest Social Enterprise Spotlight is Gerry Thorogood and 12 Guitars. Read and share their Q&A interview below! Get in contact with Gerry on gerry@12guitars.org.
What’s your social and/or environmental mission?
12 Guitars provides guitars, equipment and access to tuition and
support free at the point of use to make guitar playing accessible to
all young people in Scotland. We passionately believe that guitar
playing offers young people the opportunity to develop so many life
skills as well as musical competencies.
How do you do it? (client group, practical daily work, customers etc)
We have a team of experienced, guitar-lovingbusiness people. We
workin partnership with established youth groups to engage with young
people. We are building a programme of revenue generating activities and
relationships with suppliers in the music industry and corporate
organisations to ensure we have the finance to deliver our vision.
What’s your personal motivation for being a social entrepreneur?
I have been fortunate enough to have been working for all of the last
41 years since starting as a Business Trainee in 1978. I
commenceddelivering mentoring services with The Prince’s Trust in 2018
and decided that I wanted to combine my business experience and love of
guitars to support young people in Scotland.
What are your current projects?
We have been creating awareness and building up our library of loan
instruments. We are converting a double-decker bus “The No 12”into a
recording studio, practice studio, guitar-tech workshop, learning space
and meeting place. We have two pilot projects commencing. One in Govan
in Glasgow and one in Central Scotland (details to be announced soon)
What exciting things do you have coming up?
We have our launch party on August 24th at the Glasgow
Caring City Warehouse, on Govan Road across from the Hydro and the BBC
studios.We have bands and solo artists,a Live Prize Riff Quiz and actor
Atta Yaqub as our MC. We are currently trying to secure an established
guitar player as our first patron.
Who do you want to work with more?
Once we have completed the pilot-projects we will broaden engagement
to other cities, towns and villages. We will accelerate our engagement
with the Corporate sector. Whether to have a pop-up guitar donation
point in the staff canteen, a fund-raising live Riff-Quiz or to offer
staff volunteering opportunities, we wantdevelop this strand of
activity.
What’s your biggest challenge?
We have our sights high andhave lots of ideas, however we recognise
the need to build a strong foundation at the outset. To get the balance
right, we are taking an Agile approach to what we are doing and building
on incremental steps and successes whilst keeping an eye on the overall
strategic direction.
What top tips would you give to other social enterprises?
Although we have third-sector experience in the team, we are
newcomers to the Third Sector as an organisation. I would advise other
social enterprises to be open and engage with other like-minded
organisations early. We’ve been overwhelmed by how willing other people
are to give you their time to help you.